December 31, 2007

I'll probably make a vid about it later, but I got to say that the street play I just saw was wild fun. The crowd was mostly homeless folks from around the hostel, and they were quite raucous. Especially Mr. Argue. I have seen Mr. Argue arguing with the air. So he argued with the play today. I have thought of jumping in when he is arguing with the air. You know, back him up against his invisible assailant. But what if the invisible assailant makes a really good point and makes me look bad in front of Mr. Argue?

On new year's day I go back. And recover as much as possible.I just saw this, and was thinking, wow I'm not the only one?Did the Akihabara thing today. It kinda sucked. Den Den Town in Osaka has much cheaper merchandise, and is not nearly as sleazy. Tried to go to a maid cafe, but the line was too long. Saw a foreigner maid though, that was interesting; she had Japanese maid hair, if that makes sense.

Things would be easier if I had buddies around. The other people at the hostel are mostly quiet Asians that travel in groups and don't really need to talk with others, but I got to talking with a girl from Hong Kong. She was interesting; wish I had more time to ask about her city.

Oh, and totally flubbed a chance for a date in the big city before I leave. A girl gave me directions (without me asking, she just saw me looking at a map), and asked "Are you traveling alone?" among other things. That is sooo code for do you have a girlfriend? is it not? But I didn't notice and said goodbye once we got to the place I was going. Blarg. A date could have cheered me up too. And don't give me that crap about she was just being nice. A guy has to dream when in the city.

December 29, 2007

My butt feels like raw hamburger. Which seems appropriate, because I understand the butt is where hamburger meat comes from.--I spent all day angry. Someone owes me an apology, or at the very least, "that was a really not cool thing to do." But I won't be getting that apology, so I'll just sit on my raw booty and fume a bit.--Don't worry. Despite grumbles, I'm having a fabulous time. But not gay fabulous. Well some of the girls in the clubs could be gu... never mind.

Hanging out at clubs makes me realize one thing: soon I will be too old to hang out at clubs. If I was Japanese, I would have a future of drinking with people from work for entertainment. Shudder.Kind of a depressing night, can you tell? I think I am just tired.

Also, Californians are a little weird. Just throwing that out there. They're nice though.

December 27, 2007

My feet are sore! Lots of walking. Yesterday Asakasa, and today Ueno Koen. Traveling is not too hard; Tokyo station names are so indelably mixed with pop culture that I recognize all the station names, and thanks to 2kyu, I can match kanji with pronunciations. Digital camera is turning out to be an excellent map-holder.Don't know what tonight will hold in store, hopefully I can meet with a certain blogger.

December 26, 2007

So, I gotta admit, I'm not entirely sure why I decided to come here, and for so long. I guess I had to do with making it worth my money and seeing a friend. Also, people look at you strange if you don't have Tokyo cred. But I would have been just as happy exploring Kyushu. Because all of Japan is basically the same. But Tokyo does have a little something...I am hosteling up in the dodgy end of town. Literally droves of homeless people here; quite the change from the rest of Japan in that regard; they are usually not seen (just their tents around Osaka-jo and such), but they were numerous and I dare say have a community.So they say no good deed goes unpunished. I watched a really drunk girl wobbling about. Then slowly she melted into a prone position. I kinda shook her--no one else seemed concerned-- and asked if she wanted a cab. She didn't respond at all. So I asked where the cops where and went to their box, all the while keeping that grim saying in my mind. And wouldn't you know it, that cop woke her up (just let her walk away), but took my name and phone number. Why? I don't think they are gonna send me a good Samaritan award.

PS, they choose some intimidating foreigners to get people to go to clubs. Does that really work?

"Which card will you use? That is the question."Perhaps you have seen those Japanese commericals where the guy has to choose which life card to play.This site gives you cards based on your name. And the life involved is a little different; if you speak Japanese, you are laughing at me right now.

The cards are: 9 thighs (or neither regions?!), 9 thighs, homosexuality, or 4 thighs. No matter what name I put in, it seemed to give cruel results.orz. But if someone could describe better what it means to have 9 thighs, in as little lurid detail as possible, I'd appreciate it.

December 22, 2007

Wow. I noticed a translation of my page via a hit to a video of mine. You can see it here.Let me just say, it is a really bad translation. To whoever is reading this, I want to warn you that my message is not properly conveyed by google's tranlation services (but if I warn you and you translate the warning, how will you ever know? Conundrum). Though they are good for a laugh. Oh, and when it translated the post that already had Japanese: priceless!

If only there were some kind of reverse rikaichan plugin for my Japanese readers... pity.

December 21, 2007

Let me just say that I am very happy with the military-grade long-johns that arrived yesterday. Sooooo much warmer.My feet got wet today and I had to do the year end comments in the gym barefoot. My speech was simple and short, and I got to make fun of the second years, so that was all good. The teachers realized I speak Japanese again because of that; it should wear off in about a week and then it's back to normal.

December 18, 2007

Okay, I have stiff competition, but that's alright cause the point of these things is to expose us to the gems of the internet. So if you think I deserve it, vote for (or against) my youtube vids at the first annual Japan Bloggers Awards.

December 16, 2007

Listen, I hate myspace, but I do keep track of certain Japanese musicians through it.Anyways, the 豚骨ピストンズ are a really good band. Very much in the same vein as the HIGH LOWS. I'mma recommend you go here to see their video. Which btw goes double for Colin, who always orders nama beer for toriaezu.

December 14, 2007

Another announcement script served up for fellow teachers to get ideas.やぁみな。元気かい。きょうの言葉はＵｎｃｌｅだ。じゃあ、きょうの表現はBob’s your uncleだ。イングリッシュの表現だ。アメリカで使ったら、人に笑われるはずだ。文字通りに意味はボブはあんたのおじさんだ。表現としての意味は「～が楽だよね」。よく、表現の直前にand という言葉が来る。

例文！(trying Japanese first today)A: Will it work?それ、できるかな。B: If you do it like this, Bob’s your uncle.こうしたら、大丈夫だよ。

A: Can we make a pizza?ピザ作れるかな。B: Sure! Just use some salt and cheese, and Bob’s your uncle.ええ。ただ、塩とチーズを使うと作りやすい。

A: How do I get there?どうやってあそこに行く？B: Walk down the street, turn at the third light, and Bob’s your uncle.通りを下って、三つ目の信号で曲がれば、すぐ分かるはずだ。

December 13, 2007

Sleep does not come when I eat. But I made the mistake of eating tacos late. And when I eat tacos, I can't stop. I ate literally 12 tacos over the course of the night. Cause I couldn't sleep. Due to the tacos. Which I kept eating. Cause of the no sleep to stop me thing. Are you seeing the pattern?

So that didn't help too much when I had to give my presentation to 50 old people today. I talked about my home state of Wyoming, and somehow managed to make it look interesting (thanks, Yellowstone!). My bosses wanted me to speak Tara-ben the whole time, but it is hard enough to remember to use keigo, which we previously established I don't use. Cause of tacos--No! But yeah, lots of doubly finished sentences today, like, "雪がよくふるっ--ふります！”So local dialect was right out. I'm not sure how to mix it with keigo anyhow; there is a Saga-ben equivalent to the masu-form, but I've never heard it out loud.--In my insomnia I turned to a pirated online version of the Space Farmer. Despite it's crappyness, not even this brought me sleep. I laughed during his first failed launch though. Not so much when he decided to risk everyone's lives by doing it again. And where did the money come from?! Bad movie.

December 11, 2007

I'm just gonna try adding new terms on top of the old ones; means less searching around my blog for those of you that are interested. Also, I may edit the older ones (see をもって, where I obviously lost my page last time and looked at another).Also, it is available via googledocks here. You may be able to subscribe to the changes.

December 10, 2007

I stopped fighting around my junior high years. More than anything, I think it was because deep down I found it silly to settle things that way.But I almost got in a fight last night. I was coming out of karaoke with a couple of Japanese girls that I am just getting to know when I saw three people. Touching my car. And what the-- bending my antenna?I threw out a fairly tough "ホイ！何をしているんだ！" (elementary kids give one a lot of opportunity to say this when they start poking digits where digits don't belong). The culprit was a typical ヤンキー, with long blond matted hair and a beer mug (not can) in his hand. He dumbly looked at me, an angry foreigner out of nowhere twice his size. I pushed him firmly but fairly unconfrontationally and said, "Go away.""ゴアワイ？" he replied.I said "行け", but he kept up the dumb act. After a few rounds of me telling him to leave, I said, "曲がったやろう？ and pointed at my antennae. At this point his friend jumped in and apologized as he bent it back into place.After he did that I had decided this is not something I wanted to fight over, so I opened the passenger side for the ladies. The repentant friend said,"Ladies first かっこいよ！ ごめんね！"I mumbled a gruff もう大丈夫," and got in.The guy that I was truly angry at played dumb to the end. As I got in, he was saying "ゴアワイ？ゴアワイ？"But the interesting thing to me is my adrenaline never really rushed during or after the whole thing, though I was prepared for that beer mug to come at me any time. I apologized to the girls, but they didn't seem fazed. Overall, an interesting three-someish impromptu date.--In other fights, I recently had a heated discussion with a teacher about my lack of keigo. I realized afterwards that really, deep down, she seems to hate me. So I wrote a "lets be friends" type letter and left it in her shoe-box. She won't even look at me today. Maybe she feels guilty. Maybe she is infuriated by letters, but hey, I am shy. And we've established I don't use keigo when speaking.

December 6, 2007

JLPT 1 grammar (don't study the wrong level!) It's all in my own words (and sometimes Japanese words, when it made sense) and it is available via Google Docks here. You may be able to subscribe to the changes (I think it is complete now).

December 5, 2007

Well. It's like I had been in a pretty intense relationship for the past three months. I felt like I was working hard to make it work. But in the end I got a cold slap in the face and had to watch the JLPT walk off with some Chinese* transfer student cause he has the smarts to make a future.I was actually kinda depressed in the aftermath that is Monday-back-to-the-real-world-work. I studied a little, but it just wasn't the same. It was a hollow lie. The language didn't love me and never would.But I perked up a bit when I realized I had gone through another sub-piphany. You may recall that is my term for when I realize I suddenly know a bunch of new words and can hear them all around me. I may not be able to find gainful employment with my language skills, but at least I now understand the office gossip--which is about me-- all that much more.

So what I'm saying is, even knowing how things turned out, JLPT, baby, I don't regret a minute of our time together.--*that seems a really random thing if you weren't at the test. Basically, there were way more Asians than other varieties of foreigners there; most of them seemed to be high school exchange students.